Isaías 29:17

Is it not yet a very little while...? — The image of the potter does not suggest to Isaiah the thought of an arbitrary sovereignty, but of a love which will in the long run fulfil itself. He paints as not far off the restoration at once of the face of nature and of the life of man. Lebanon, that had been stripped of its cedars by the Assyrian invader (Isaías 10:34), so as to be as the wilderness of Isaías 22:15, should regain its glory, and once more be as Carmel, or “the fruitful field,” while the fields that had rejoiced in the rich growth of herbage and shrubs should attain the greatness of the forests of Lebanon as they had been. (See Isaías 32:15, where “the wilderness” answers to the “Lebanon” of this verse.) The thought and the language would seem to have been among Isaiah’s favourite utterances.